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INTRODUCTION
in sorrow what they teach in song," they at any rate teach what we are glad to know and appre-ciate. Great Britain for many hundred years, has been singularly rich in songs, ballads, and madrigals of all kinds; May Day songs, Christ-mas carols, Easter and Whitsun madrigals, catches, canons, roundels and lyrics of high life and humble life; Shakespeare's and Ben Jonson's incomparable lyrics, to say nothing of the love-lyrics of other Elizabethan masters of verse and the Cavalier poets; and writers of all ages, English, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh: no other nation can show such variety, such charm as we favoured Britons possess in our countless melodies.
If words were given us to conceal our thoughs, music must have been given us to ex-press them, to turn our tears to laughter and our laughter to tears; to make our brief joys long and our worst sorrows brief. For what more thrilling voice is there than the voice of music—the voice of all our passions blended into witching melody or soul-inspiring har-mony ?
The most popular and the most appreciated music with all classes is the music of Song. Tender words wedded to sympathetic music will do more to move the multitude than all the
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